Eric Champ
Age: 34 Power Source: artifact (constant) Appearance: a well-groomed and visibly graceful man with smooth, lightly tanned skin. Champ has slightly long blond hair, neatly combed and wavy. He tends to favor pinstriped white or gray suits and dress shoes. Champ is rarely without a sealed deck of cards visible in his breast pocket. Superpowers: Eric Champ is a fabulously wealthy man, head of a data management company that acts as a front for his quasi-legal gambling circle. Champ is most noted for his money, fame, and influence, having numerous ties and powerful figures paid off, including the city’s most talented prophet on his payroll. He has extensive knowledge on superhumans, both specific and general. He has the supernatural ability to succeed in nearly everything involving luck or chance, though he is also a capable fighter when absolutely forced. An extensive time in billiard halls and the like have taught him to be very capable with throwing items and blade fighting. Affiliation: Heroes Royale (ringleader), Champ Industries (president) Biography: Eric was a simple son of a teenage mother, native born in Empire City. It was while walking home from school one day that he found a penny, remembering the superstition to pick it up. By incalculable odds, he had picked up the lost artifact only describable as the luckiest penny on earth, transferring its godly luck into his person. Everything turned to his favor. Typos spelt out beautiful phrases, he won every guessing game or dice roll, and everything was “aces” to him. Champ, while unaware of the penny’s value (he’d spent it on a Swedish Fish not long after finding it), was conscious that these things were all some incredible act of luck staying by his side. He gave some respect to that, and even when he was legal, he gambled minimally and never actively abused it on innocent people. Never considering himself to be a con-artist, Eric constantly won at anything involving luck. Gambling or guessing was one thing, but he wasn’t naturally athletic or the like. He worked and bet his and his mother’s way out of poverty, becoming a successful cook as a fairly needless job he excelled at by consciously making up recipes off the top of his head, only to have them be praised as genius. One night after work, he was attacked by a mugger. Where his luck did nothing to stop him, a young woman in colored robes beat him senseless with a staff. She gave him a business card and told him to play the stock market. While the thought hadn’t occurred to him, the police showed up seconds later answering a call about a burglary in process. Puzzled but accepting of the advice, Champ quickly skyrocketed in wealth by investing in various stocks. He invested more into a paper goods and filing company, seeking the occasional advice of the girl who called herself The Medium. Champ attempted to pursue her both literally and in terms of information, but always found the trail cold (and sometimes with a mocking note). Champ finally offered to make her a business partner, and they became fairly good (if not professionally distant) friends. Medium was always careful about his luck, as he was with her foresight, but they finally realized together their potential for betting. Champ took up local, the city-wide, then professional betting circles on upcoming superhero fights, cashing in on the craze around superhumans at the time. The law was quick to act against his gambling circuit, but a bargain was quietly made to pay superheroes a fraction of his take from the bets. Wildly wealthy, deeply connected, and a cunning, crafty tactician, Champ is one of the most respected and envied men in the city.